Last week, at a yearly doctor’s exam, I got into a conversation with a nurse I’ve known for years.
After catching up on each other’s lives, I told her that I will be leading a women’s tour group to Poland. I described how we would be going to Auschwitz, Birkenau and other places where the smoke hid the yellow of the sun as the world turned dark.
She shared with me a memory from years past.
“I was a young nurse in my 20s. This must’ve been 40 years ago. I had just started out in the office and a very sweet Orthodox woman was my next patient. I handed her the striped hospital gown to change into. I remember it was blue and white. As I gave it to her she turned ashen.
‘I can’t’ she said to me.
I thought I had not heard her properly, or that she just didn’t get it. I tried again.
‘Excuse me?’ I said. ‘All you have to do is put it on. The doctor won’t see you if you don’t change and put this on.
She looked at me with wide eyes, rolled up her sleeves, and then I saw them. The numbers on her arm.
‘You cannot imagine what I’ve been through. And we had to wear those striped uniforms, standing every day at roll call. I was starving, frightened and beaten. I saw the angel of death. I cannot put that on. Please!’”
As she relayed the story, the nurse’s eyes glistened.
“Here I was, a non-Jew and I had no idea. What did I know about the Jews? I only knew that we had two sweet Jewish neighbors. Every year they would have us buy their chometz. After Passover, they would buy it back. They made delicious rugelach. But this? Who knew about this? You bet I made sure to find her a pink gown to put on. No way would I make her wear the blue striped gown and take her back to that tragic time of her life. That night I went home and tried to find anything I could put my hands on to learn about the Holocaust. I was in shock.”
“But here’s the thing, Slovie,” she said. “The world has forgotten. It’s been how many years since I met that women? 40 years… and the story is lost. No one in this generation has any clue. This makes me so sad to tell you but it’s true. Either they don’t know or they don’t care. They are clueless.”
When I hear this, I wonder.
How could our story get lost? After all, we are not speaking about ancient tales or people who lived long ago.
Once again we were massacred and the world has stood silent. University presidents speak about ‘context’ to wiggle themselves out of the ugly antisemitic hole that they’ve dug. Thousands march against us shouting slogans they do not understand. After vowing ‘never again’ we have faced the harsh truth. They meant ‘never again’ until ‘again’ rises. ‘Again’ is now.
Hitler, yemach shemo, spoke of a ‘Final Solution’ for our people. He wanted to destroy every last Jew on this earth. He had a plan. Could we ever have imagined hearing ‘there is only one solution…in our lifetime? What kind of world are we leaving our children?
Our mission is to hold onto our story. After the Jewish people were hit by Amalek, the Torah testifies “Hashem will be at war against the Amalekites from generation to generation.” This battle is not new. Hatred against our nation is as old as time. We are charged to remember. Zachor!
With our memory comes a mandate. To know who we are, where we have come from, and where we are going. To live higher. To realize that we have been given the Land of Israel as a gift from Hashem. To live with pride and certainty in our connection to Eretz Yisrael – without excusing our existence. And most importantly, to teach our children well.
Because if the next generation lives with doubt, then who will remember our story?
